Law Lesson in the Ma'afia

It's not what you think. It's Ma'afia ( מאפייה) not Mafia.

I had to sue my employer for not paying me certain expenses and benefits . I decided not to take a lawyer to represent me as I distrust lawyers as much as I distrust politicians. So I sat down with the book to see what the law has to say in my case , and browsed through law forums on the Web to pick up some tips and tricks. I knew I had to be very good to beat the rotten system and get my money , so I checked very carefully the preliminary correspondence with the court and the lawyer of the adverse party. God opened my eyes and made me notice something which seemed like a gross mistake on the part of the lawyer or an attempt to mislead the judge.

I needed to be reassured of the value of my finding , so I turned to a young law student who worked part time in the local Ma'afia (hebrew word for bakery) where I buy my pita bread, and asked for his opinion. Brilliant, he said, we are going to tear him to pieces. We ?! Yes. The student offered his free services as 'producer' and 'director' of what was supposed to be my show in the court.

According to him, the danger was that the sleek lawyer will throw at me some provocative, offensive word , make me weep, and this will ruin the whole thing. That must not happen. I have to be in control of the situation from the very beginning. I have to be a ruthless attacker. He instructed me to rehearse in front of the mirror and then, a few days before the trial we rehearsed in the backyard of the Ma'afia, with him playing the part of the lawyer I was supposed to"kill". He was full of excitement and I was worried to death.

On the day of the trial, I was tense; the lawyer representing the employer seemed very full of himself and confident in his abilities. He didn't take even a single look at me. I was nothing to him. I didn't exist. This was a good beginning for me. I hate arrogant people, and ignoring me is a red curtain in front of the bull. So I started the attack. I approached the lawyer, looked straight into his eyes and asked with the right intonation where was it that he got his diploma as it appeared he didn't know the very basics of his profession. And then turned to the judge not asking, but claiming that this fellow, the lawyer, attempted to mislead the court by submitting distorted facts.

To make a long story short, I won the case.

A week latter, the student phoned me to ask for a favour -he wanted me to arrange a date for him with a certain girl he had seen me talking to. I hardly knew the girl; she was some distant relative of my cousin's sister in law. He insisted: You'll find a way, he said . I must meet her. Oho, love at first sight?! No, at second, he replied. "I've just learnt that her grandfather owns half of all the ma'afiot (bakeries) in the country".

Bastard. Cute bastard.

The Murder Weapon

I like to walk and jog in a certain alley in my neighborhood. It's a narrow, non paved alley bordered by ancient, majestic trees. I like to stamp on the soft soil ( we have few rains and only in winter, so no mud most of the year); the tall trees make one feel a little dot in the universe and at the same time give a feeling of protection and security.

Sometimes, a retired gym teacher living nearby, trains her dog in this alley and once , something very unpleasant happened to me: the dog knocked me down while running to fetch a ball thrown by her in his direction. The woman panicked, dragged me into her house, cleaned my scratches, put some ointment, made me a cup of tea, hugged me. It was a miracle that I fell on my knees and not on my head ."You know how to fall" she said to me trying to cheer me up. Very funny. I told her she had to stop training the dog in the alley; it puts the occasional passers by in danger.

After the incident, she and her dog vanished from the alley for several months. When I saw her again , the other day, before I could even say Hello she asked me to come into her house promising to show me something very important that she didn't have the chance to show me at the time of my fall incident. It was a bundle consisting of two letters, a card and some newspapers. The letters were letters of Thanks and Appreciation for helping solve a crime- one leter was from the Mayor of the City, the other from the Chief of the Police Headquarters; the Thank You' card ,was originally attached to a bouquet of flowers that had been sent to her by the parents of the victim; the newspapers - local and national , related the story in detail ( I wouldn't have recognized her by the blurry picture in the newspapers).

And this is the story ( which at the time was very much on my mind) : Last year, a young female lawyer, mother of two small children was stabbed to death on the treshold of her house; the children were in the dining room eating supper and didn't catch sight of the murderer. The big question was, why would a woman with two small children in the house, open the door to a complete stranger. I suppose she looked through the door electronic eye, saw the innocent face of a teenager, and that made her open the door without any fear.

That's right; the murderer was a 16 year old high school pupil with no criminal or psychiatric record and no motive. It was a complete surprise for the Police which was busy investigating the lawyer's clients, the ex- husband and the possibility of some romantic connections. Well, this is where our retired gym teacher and her obedient dog came in. She found the murder weapon - a knife with traces of blood on it. It was the dog's wild barking near a deserted trash bin in a bush not far from her house that drew her to the spot. She lifted the lid , saw a red- stained knife , and went to call the Police. She actually did the job for them; without the murder weapon they would probably never have solved the crime as they were completely in the wrong direction.

Quite a woman! I only hope that by inviting me in to see the stuff, she just wanted to show off and not convey some indirect message that with her 'heroic background' she's the Queen of the alley and will do whatever she pleases there , including dog training.